Re: on debate with Mark Tully-- good pointNS Rajaram posts:
"....We must first set our own house in order
before we go out to change the world. It must begin with our so-called 'spiritual' leaders who seem more intent on impressing our enemies of their 'broadmindedness' than lead the Hindus.

This is due to a combination of ignorance and cowardice. We must be prepared to stand up and be counted-- and face brickbats sometimes.

Most of the rigorous critique of Abrahamaic religions has come from secular Hindu thinkers like Ram Swarup, Sita Ram Goel and now Rajiv Malhotra. Our 'spiritual' leaders just mouth platitudes.

It is also incorrect to say that Western thinkers have not criticized Christianity. Some of the best critics have been Western thinkers going back at least to Voltaire. We should do our homework before we charge others."

"

Subroto responds:
"The purposes of our Dharmic and Philosophical traditions and
that of Abrahmic traditions are different and thereby the training and
spiritual practices are bound to be different.Our best spiritual masters
undertake rigorous Sadhana and devote their time,instincts and training
to achieve spiritual goals.This is also the reason that through a much
higher level of cultivation of faculties they have been instrumental in
creating a vast body of knowledge that is applicable at different planes
of existence.They are not sales persons of institutionalized "faiths"
-should we try to retrain them we shall
assuredly fail.Therefore we have to adopt a different paradigm which accommodates the continuity of
our spiritual practices while avoiding an invalid comparison of Clergy
and Monks and seminaries and Mathas. We simply do not have the cadre of
people that are seen as "representatives of faith" who are or will be
"well versed with a deep study of western faiths" to make the discourse
even. We create spiritual masters not theologians from seminaries or
PhD's from universities. The PhD's in religion and the Theologians
have set the parameters for the debate and we have accepted the rules
of their game on their terms.It is not surprising that we find
ourselves ill prepared. A monkey can challenge a lion and claim that one
who wins a game of jumping is superior- but does it mean lions need to
become monkeys!

We have two choices:

# 1 : To say that a billion people find no interest in your
game - if pushed say that we are not interested in degrading ourselves
to play with unworthy opponents just to sanctify them.

OR

# 2 : We accept a playing field that is not level with the
understanding of our handicaps - here we cannot be frustrated by the
prospect of loosing.I vote for this..."

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